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While 2018 takes its last breath, we present the third edition of our Queer-Feminist Science and Technology Studies Forum, in which we aimed at ‘queering diversity’ and searched for the queer and the class in academia and research. Our idea behind this issue was to take a closer look at the – supposed – gap between diversity policies and actual practices.

We have four exciting contributions: Claudia Chiang-Lopez from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, critically discusses the various hegemonic interpretations of students leaving/being pushed out of secondary and tertiary education. Daniela Zanini-Freitag, member of our Queer STS working group, held with Jay Pongruengphant, the current UNDP national officer on Governance, Human Rights and LGBTI of the Being LGBTI in Asia programme. Tessa Leach critically examines the sexbot inherent conflict of neoliberal commodification of women’s bodies and the fear of objectification and violence of some feminist discourses and is also a teaser for next year’s fourth issue of our Queer STS Forum which will be discussing “Queer-feminist perspectives on sex robots” (CfP here!).The fourth and final contribution is a conversational interview between Daniela Jauk, co-editor and member of our Queer STS working group and Reni Hofmüller who is a multidimensional queer-feminist artist, art organizer, media maker, DIY tech activist, educator, and so much more.

“Queering Diversity” – In Search of the Queer and the Class in Academia and Research

Within the Bologna Process “making our [European higher education] systems more inclusive” is one of the latest main goals, as it was formulated by the ministers of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in the Yerevan Communiqué of 2015. Despite efforts to create universities as more open by diversifying students and faculty, academia is still a place of “homosocial reproduction” (Kanter 1977; Möller 2014). The commercial space of technology and engineering also promises remarkable social mobility opportunities for “diverse” individuals (ie. working class, rural, ethnically diverse, queer, etc.), yet these are not kept when examining actual workforce composition. Vivianne Castello put this reality bluntely in her article “Why Most Conversations in Tech About Diversity Are Bullshit — and What to Do About It“.

Intersectionality theory became a great tool to theoretically dissect mono-dimensional shortcomings of diversity efforts, yet Bilge (2013) analyzes how a specific form of academic feminism in tune with the neoliberal knowledge economy works to “depoliticize intersectionality,” neutralizing the critical potential of intersectionality and stripping it from its important power-reflexive analytical potential. Same applies to “diversity studies” which is being translated into managerial voice and then becomes a means to increase profit by and to work more effectively on multinational and multicultural projects, rather than to critically reflect biases and work environments. Class is often completely left out of these conversations. For academia Warnock (2016) describes stereotypes and micro-aggressions working class academics encounter and how their struggling to pass in a middle-class culture leads more and more to increased precarious job situations.

In this issue of Queer STS Forum we seek to unmask shallow applications of diversity in academia, research, and innovation and detach it from the ‘wellness-marketing-corner’ of tech corporations by bringing the question of power into focus: Where specifically is class and queerness in queer and intersectional Science and Technology Studies? We are looking for work that centers power issues and dares to speak about working class identities and advanced discrimination (Dressel et al 1994) lying within production systems of knowledge.

We invite contributions in English that may take experimental forms. In addition to academic journal articles and interviews, we can accommodate video-contributions as well as other multimedia essays and visualizations, since this is an open access online journal.

and that despite its potential, technologies (like internet, robotics, etc.) tend to reproduce social and gender hierarchies, because social differences may not be biologically justified, but they are as well socially constructed and for instance gender stereotypes are inscribed in technologies (for instance Jennifer Robertson states that “humanoid robots are the vanguard of posthuman sexism“); then about

how the future of technologies will shape working and living of the humans (more about that in CGP Grey`s video “Humans Need Not Apply“)

and the ultimate vision of Queer STS that everybody who is affected by technologies, should be able to participate in the design process of technologies (yes we know that means everybody!):